


Another Chapter Where the Hero Shifts

by fandommkopf



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Anakin Skywalker Has Issues, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Tragedy, Betrayal, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Communication Failure, Dark Anakin Skywalker, Darkest Timeline, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Father-Son Relationship, Friends to Enemies, Friendship, Gen, Guardian-Ward Relationship, Introspection, Manipulation, Manipulative Relationship, Manipulative Sheev Palpatine, Mind Manipulation, Power Dynamics, Present Tense, Rating May Change, Sith Anakin Skywalker, Sith Training, Tags May Change, The Dark Side of the Force, The Force, Unhealthy Relationships, Warnings May Change, What-If, Young Anakin Skywalker
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:41:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25964533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandommkopf/pseuds/fandommkopf
Summary: The Council deliberates again, debates in useless circles, but upholds its decision: Anakin Skywalker will not become a Jedi. Obi-Wan imagines another reality in which he takes Anakin as his padawan, guides him as Qui-Gon would have wanted. He imagines it as a better future than the grim one the boy is staring down now. But then, before the celebrations have ended, before the politicians return to Coruscant to work out the finer logistic details of war and peace, before the Jedi can decide Anakin's ultimate fate, Palpatine steps in and makes the decision for them. No one questions or hesitates when the new Supreme Chancellor suggests taking the boy in as his ward. He’ll have all the blessings that privilege and wealth and position can offer. He’ll have a bright future, brighter even than the one Obi-Wan had imagined for him. No one questions or hesitates.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Shmi Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Qui-Gon Jinn & Anakin Skywalker, Qui-Gon Jinn & Obi-Wan Kenobi, Sheev Palpatine & Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 9
Kudos: 54





	Another Chapter Where the Hero Shifts

The death of Qui-Gon Jinn at the hands of Darth Maul changes everything, and nothing. 

Feeling small and hollow with one of their own missing, and shaken by the appearance of a Sith lord, the Council deliberates again, debates in useless circles, but upholds its decision: Anakin Skywalker will not become a Jedi. 

As Yoda tells him the news, alone in a quiet room of the royal palace in Theed, Obi-Wan balks, protests, threatens. 

“I gave Qui-Gon my word. I will train Anakin. Without the approval of the council, if I must.” 

But it’s an empty threat, and they both know it. The Council will never allow such disobedience, and he’ll never walk away from the Order. So it comes to nothing. 

Still he petitions through every channel both official and otherwise he can think of, hopes to sway someone, _anyone_ , to open the debate again. Each of them only repeats their old words.

“Agree with your taking this boy as your padawan learner, I do not,” Master Yoda says. 

“No, he will not be trained,” Master Windu says.

“The Force _is_ strong with him,” Master Mundi says, but shakes his head and won't say more.

As he struggles to understand their stubbornness and contain his frustration, Obi-Wan remembers what he said to Qui-Gon when the Council had first refused. “ _The boy is dangerous. They all sense it. Why can’t you?_ ”

He’d warned his master, his friend, ~~his father~~ against the tension behind his eyes and in his gut he couldn’t explain then, still can’t explain now. And now here he is, ignoring his own senses, his own better judgment, in favor of an impossible promise made to a dying man. To what end?

But that had been Kenobi the padawan. As a newly instated Jedi knight, now Obi-Wan imagines another reality in which he takes Anakin as his padawan, guides him as Qui-Gon might have, as Qui-Gon would have wanted. He imagines it as a better future than the grim one the boy is staring down now.

In _this_ reality, in _this_ future, Anakin’s fate still hangs in the balance. The Council debates. The politicians make it their business to involve themselves. Should he go back to Tatooine, and live in tenuous freedom with his enslaved mother? Go back to Coruscant, or stay on Naboo, to grow up in an orphan home? There is no good answer, no good fate—like the one in Obi-Wan’s imagination—that seems to await the boy.

But then, before the celebrations have ended, before the politicians inevitably give up on the question and return to Coruscant to work out the finer logistic details of war and peace, before the Jedi can decide, Palpatine steps in and makes the decision for them.

No one questions or hesitates when the new Supreme Chancellor suggests taking the boy in as his ward. He’ll have all the blessings that privilege and wealth and position can offer. He’ll have a bright future, brighter even than the one Obi-Wan had imagined for him. 

No one questions or hesitates.

____________________

Anakin flourishes in his new environment, quickly adapting to a life beyond his wildest imagination. The Chancellor’s residence on Coruscant becomes home. His tutors praise him, acquainted dignitaries are charmed by him. Obi-Wan visits and tells him inspiring stories about the Jedi. But still he thinks about his past, thinks about his mother, fears losing her.

He tries not to dwell on Master Yoda’s words, but they run through his mind over and over.

“ _Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. I sense much fear in you._ ”

The path to the dark side, an ominous, intangible entity that creeps around the edges of his imagination, that no one will really explain to him, not even Obi-Wan with his bright stories that dance around the dark things. He just wants someone to explain it all to him.

He tells Palpatine about his dreams one morning, a year after gaining his freedom and arriving on Coruscant. The dreams where his mother lives, but he never finds her, never sees her again. The dreams where his mother dies. The consuming sense that he’s not doing enough, not doing something he should be. The waking fear that he should save her, that he can’t. The dreams where he goes back and saves them all, a lightsaber in his hands. But that path is closed to him now. He strains against his impotence, fights with a growing petulance towards not only his own ineptitude but that of everyone else too.

“I had a dream I was a Jedi. I came back… and freed all the slaves. It’s what I’ve always dreamed of doing.”

He doesn’t elaborate, but Palpatine can sense the boy’s train of thought.

_Master Qui-Gon said I had the Force. I was supposed to be a Jedi. They can do anything. Why can’t they stop people from hurting, from dying? Why didn’t they want me?_

This, Palpatine knows, is the moment. The one he’s been waiting for, years now, long before he even met the boy, growing closer with each twist of fate. 

“ _We will watch your career with great interest,_ ” he had said when his delegation landed on Naboo after Master Jinn’s death and the Trade Federation’s defeat. And now the moment has come to cultivate that career, closer and sooner and simpler than he could even have hoped.

“Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?”

Anakin stares at him blankly.

“No.”

But he fidgets in his seat, anxious and intrigued. There it is.

“I thought not. It’s not a story the Jedi would tell you.” _Not a story Master Kenobi would tell you_ , his words quietly accuse. “It’s a Sith legend.”

And so it begins with legends. The lore of another order in the galaxy, one not limited by black and white morality or red tape. One with the will and power to do what is necessary, when it is necessary, with no hesitation and no compromise. The will and power to do _anything_. 

“He could even keep the ones he cared about from dying.”

The boy, the freed slave—young, impressionable, wracked with something like survivor’s guilt and already consumed with ambition—is enthralled.

“He could actually… save people from death?”

“The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural.”

There is very little hesitation in the boy’s next question. Only a reckless curiosity tumbling headlong into a cautious hope.

“Is it possible to learn this power?”

“Not from a Jedi.”

____________________

Bedtime stories grow into a political education. Anakin is smart, clever, and so eager to learn. He has a good heart, and his ambition is not for himself, but for the betterment of others, for justice and fairness. Foolish Jedi sentiment, democratic sentiment. It is a simple thing to make inferences, suggestions, draw parallels. Expose the flaws in their system, the flaws that do the harm Anakin sees in the galaxy and already wants to correct. Craft the concept of a mythical utopia where people like him, people who know best, can _do_ what’s best without interference. 

It is easy, embarrassingly easy, to pull the boy further and further away from the hollow, falsely noble promises of the Jedi and the Republic. He has already seen and felt too much oppression and injustice in his short lifetime. The Jedi could not free his mother, the Republic will not free his planet. What should their promises of democracy and free will mean to him? On Tatooine, the Hutts forcibly control everything and everyone with an iron will, and that will makes the planet function. For all its flaws, flaws that can be corrected by an even stronger iron will, is that not a better system than too many people fighting over too many decisions so nothing gets done?

There is some risk, indoctrinating the boy when one offhand comment made in careless youth could give away too much too soon. But Anakin is smart, and clever, and so eager to learn. So eager to please. He understands quickly that the utopia they discuss is controversial, unfairly maligned by so many in the senate and utterly beyond the comprehension of lesser beings in the galaxy who need a firm guiding hand. That it must be their secret, something to always believe in, always strive for, but that it must wait for the right time to flourish, just as Anakin did.

And Palpatine knows about waiting.

There is only one more obstacle, one more threat to be overcome. 

On a difficult evening, when Anakin in his childish rebellion wants to be contrary for its own sake, they debate the sanctity of the Jedi Order, a romantic notion he still clings to in youthful naivety. 

“Remember back to your early teachings,” Palpatine tells him, pulling him to the dark again. “All who gain power are afraid to lose it. Even the Jedi.”

“The Jedi use their power for good,” Anakin insists, trying to remember a man who saved his life, a man who grows more shadowy in his memory every day.

“Good is a point of view, Anakin. The Sith and the Jedi are similar in almost every way, including their quest for greater power.”

“The Sith rely on their passion for their strength. They think inwards, only about themselves.” It’s Obi-Wan’s words riding on Anakin’s voice, but he speaks them with less conviction than he would have not so long ago, more out of habit and stubbornness than devotion or faith.

Palpatine smiles patiently.

“And the Jedi don’t?”

The Jedi want nothing to do with the boy, and their last stubborn holdout can’t hold on forever. It’s only a matter of time until the last bond begins to sever. And so he grooms Anakin’s mind, and cautiously he waits.

____________________

In the early months, Obi-Wan stays close, stays in touch as much as he can. And already from the beginning, he feels he can never really do enough, never be enough, to correct his initial worry, to live up to Qui-Gon’s expectations. 

But still he tries. He visits the boy, tells him stories about the Jedi Order, about the Republic, about Qui-Gon and Master Yoda and Master Windu and so many who have come before. About nobility and righteousness. He feels for a time, too brief a time, that he’s doing the right thing. Young Anakin is taken with the stories at first, perhaps remembering his curiosity at Qui-Gon’s early instruction on the Force, perhaps clinging to how it felt when a Jedi entered his life and changed it forever. 

But too soon his interest wanes, and his joy darkens into something Obi-Wan tells himself again and again isn’t bitterness, isn’t snide derision. Every time Anakin asks about the dark side, Obi-Wan reinforces a vague idea that the dark side, the Sith, are corrupt, selfish, dangerous, then diverts the conversation back to the light. And every time he can feel Anakin’s frustration grow. Until one day, Anakin asks once more, and when Obi-Wan refuses to indulge him as always, Anakin seems to accept it with a disturbing, almost anticipated finality. As if this was a last chance, as if it was a predictable betrayal, as if Obi-Wan has played right into his hands. Anakin never asks again.

(When Obi-Wan leaves that afternoon, after his final refusal, after too long an absence and too short a visit, Anakin rages against the world: against his own failures and frustrations, against the Council’s coldness, against Obi-Wan’s unfairness. Why can’t Obi-Wan just share this one thing, this one piece of knowledge? Is it punishment, for not being a Jedi? Is it a taunt, reminding him that he’s forced to exist without the entitlement he was denied? He was supposed to be the chosen one. Why would Obi-Wan deny him this?

“It’s all Obi-Wan’s fault! He’s jealous! He’s holding me back!”

Palpatine just smiles, waits for the storm to settle back into helplessness, extends his arms to welcome Anakin into a comforting hug. The boy will get over his anger, and will smile again the next time Obi-Wan visits. But the smile will be a little dimmer, the loyalty a little weaker, the next step a little easier.)

Maybe it’s too much to hear these stories and fully grasp the future that was taken from him with the Council’s decision. Maybe Obi-Wan’s very presence, a reminder of everything that happened, is too much. Maybe Palpatine’s path for the boy, into a political career far separated from the Order, is a better one. Maybe the boy deserves, _needs_ , a clean break to start his new life. Maybe maybe maybe.

(Later, Obi-Wan will question his own uncertainty. Later, he will wonder why his judgement was so clouded. Later, he will _know_.)

So his stories change in theme and tone, becoming more anecdotal than ideological, and then the stories shorten, and then finally stop altogether. His visits grow more infrequent. It’s easy to justify when the Order’s demands take up more of his time, when he takes a padawan and has an obligation to put them first. But still he visits now and then, still he watches, sometimes from the fringes of social gatherings, sometimes from the shadows. 

And he tries to ignore the warning still growing in the back of his mind, the sense of impending doom he still can’t completely justify or make sense of.

____________________

Anakin asks Palpatine the question one morning, three years after gaining his freedom and arriving on Coruscant, and months after he’s stopped asking Obi-Wan for guidance.

“How do you know the ways of the Force?”

It’s the question Palpatine has been waiting for, the next step.

“My mentor taught me everything about the Force. Even the nature of the dark side.”

To his credit, Anakin’s eyes don’t widen in surprise. He knew this already, deep down, since he first heard the story of Darth Plagueis. But still he asks. He must be certain now.

“You know the dark side?”

“If one is to understand the great mystery, one must study all its aspects, not just the dogmatic narrow view of the Jedi. If you wish to become a complete and wise leader, you must embrace a larger view of the Force.”

A complete and wise leader, one with the strength to do what is necessary, to do the impossible.

Palpatine smiles warmly and pats Anakin’s shoulder as he heads off to the senate, as though it was any usual sage political advice, as though it was any other morning, one without this momentous weight hanging in the air, and leaves the boy to think.

That night, Anakin comes to the door of Palpatine’s study, but he doesn’t enter, doesn’t speak first this time. He only stares, waiting. For a moment, a flicker of unease passes through Palpatine. 

“ _Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?_ ” he hears himself asking the boy some years ago. “ _Unfortunately, he taught his apprentice everything he knew. Then his apprentice killed him in his sleep. It’s ironic._ ”

But the boy is only waiting for an invitation, for permission, he assures himself, waiting for guidance. The guidance the Jedi Council wouldn’t give him, that Kenobi couldn’t give him, that drove him here to this moment.

He gives the boy a single nod, and Anakin steps through, closing the door behind him. He looks back to Palpatine waiting, and Palpatine concedes, formally laying out the invitation. There is no more pretense now.

“Only through me can you achieve a power greater than any Jedi.”

The Jedi, the Republic, their promises fall flat. Palpatine, he follows through on all of his.

That night, behind the closed doors of the study, Anakin tells Palpatine his decision.

“I pledge myself to your teachings.”

That night, behind the closed doors, Palpatine hands Anakin a lightsaber.

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t really know where this came from. I was watching the new trilogy and got a random brain wave for some “what if” AU scenario where Anakin didn’t become a Jedi and Palpatine took him in and how do things change and how do they stay the same, and suddenly I had 2,500+ words. I'm planning for this to be a three-parter going through Episode II and III, but this first part also works as a standalone and I’m really inconsistent with writing, so I thought I’d post it as-is before the rest is finished.
> 
> All of the quoted dialogue is pulled directly from the movies, but a few lines have been reshuffled. I wanted to keep the essence of conversations that canonically happen, just have them happen at different times.
> 
> Fic and chapter titles are from Richard Siken:  
> “Every morning another chapter where the hero shifts  
> from one foot to the other. Every morning the same big  
> and little words all spelling out desire, all spelling out  
> You will be alone always and then you will die.”  
> -  
> “I’m battling monsters, I’m pulling you out of the burning buildings / and you say I’ll give you anything but you never come through.”


End file.
